parenthood

Looking at a shot of her wearing bunny ears from an Easter morning in their apartment, he tried to predict her scoffing reply were he to tell her that he was a father. In that exercise, he was surprised to brush, for the first time in hours, against a feeling like hope. It had only ever been through her, with her, that he could imagine parenthood. Why not again? Reese—the trans woman from whom he’d learned about womanhood —would see his fatherhood and dismiss it. To her, he would always be a woman. By borrowing her vantage, he could almost see himself as a parent: Perhaps one way to tolerate being a father would be to have her constant presence assuring him that he was actually not one. This possibility dovetailed with what he wanted anyway: to be family with Reese once more, in some way. So why not in parenthood? Was it such a wild proposal to contemplate? Were Reese to help raise the child too, everyone would get what they wanted. Katrina would have a commitment to family from her lover, Reese would get a baby, and he, well, he’d get to live up to what they both hoped he could be by being what he already was: a woman but not, a father but not.

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